Devil Winds
by Anotherjaneway
Summary: Captain Stanley and the staff of Rampart get stressed with the return of the Santa Ana winds in autumn. Wide spread chaos rules the night and far away from the city streets. Station 51 attempts the impossible.


This is a text version of the original still airing imaged, music soundtracked story.

Emergency Theater Live, Episode Twenty One

21. Devil Winds Season Three - Episode 21 Short summary-  
Captain Stanley and the staff of Rampart get stressed with the return of the Santa Ana winds in autumn. Wide spread chaos rules the night and far away from the city streets. Station 51 attempts the impossible.

****WARNING**** The long summary to come is very story spoiling and will take away plot surprises if you read it now before reading the longer story below it.

Decide now if you want to read this episode's detailed summary before doing so.

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Long Summary-  
Hank Stanley suffers from anticipating the start of the Santa Ana winds season. Mike Stoker displays a hobby of predicting brush fires versus wind intensity using maps. Station 51 responds to the first wind related rescue call of the season, a cessna hanging from powerlines. Rampart is swamped with minor category idiot ER phone calls, driving Dixie batty. Roy and Johnny lighten her load. Gage frets about his ranch, when Stoker predicts it to be in a red critical zone for fire risk. Station 51 gets called into the foothills on firestorm standby.  
Squad 51 treats a fireline firefighter for smoke inhalation and rescue Johnny's aunt from his ranch's burning caretaker's house. A tree torched barn puts Dixie in jeopardy, enticing a rescue using a horse.

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The Story Unfolds...

Season Three, Episode Twenty One.  
Devil Winds Debut Launch: May 1st, 2005.

*  
From: "rwein5" Date: Thu May 5, 2005 8:18 pm Subject: It's a beginning . .

The dry air settled over the brush and dry foliage of the mountain range. Smog and haze were a natural part of the horizon most of the year, but on this day it seemed thicker and stronger than ever. It was also the time of year where the winds returned in strong, sweeping passes between the mountains and the valleys. Despite the wind,  
however, the dry, arid thickness remained determined to keep the horizon embedded in its cloak of heaviness. There was no escape from the inevitable happening. When the natural elements joined together in song and dance over the parched land it seemed to always end in a spark, and then the real terror began . . .

Hank shook his head again as he climbed down Big Red. Water continued to drip from his hair and turnout coat leaving him in a very determined mood to get dry. The clean up had been long and tedious from the apartment fire, but he was thankful that the injuries were minor. Johnny and Roy were finishing up at the hospital while the engine crew worked on their own finish.

"Cap, I've got the logbook. Why don't you take what time you need,"  
Mike said, breaking Hank's temporary reflection.

"Yea, good idea. Chet, Marco . . I get the shower first. I'm pullin'  
rank sorry, fellas!"

Hank gave a small pause as he considered his statement but then again,  
he rarely used his rank.

"Sure, Cap," "No problem!" responded Chet and Marco at the same time. Despite their own discomfort, they deferred to their captain.  
"I'll get some coffee going," added Chet.

Hank sloshed toward the locker room and stripped away the wet and heavy clothing. He eased into the shower and let the hot water soak in. The steam filled his nostrils and he took it in with his eyes closed and his mind wandering. The dispatch he had received prior to their latest run included the annual reminders of brushfire drills and training. The heat of the water continued to soothe Hank's muscles.  
He thought about the upcoming brushfire season and sighed. Despite the calming effects of the shower, his anticipation and inner sensibilities warned him of what was to come. Whispers of the beast seemed to enter his thoughts and he realized that his sense of foreboding was not the best way to end this shower.

He turned the water a little cooler and finished washing up. Burying his head and face in the clean wooly towel seemed to refresh his tired mind. He dried quickly and with years of experience in fast changes,  
had completed his dressing routine.

"Shower's free!" Hank yelled as he walked by the day room.

He entered his office and found a new dispatch on his desk.  
Obviously, Mike had put it there while he was cleaning up. Hank started reading it and felt the tendrils of distress creep back. He heard the squad roll back into the bay but he didn't hear Roy coming in.

"Cap? You okay?" he asked.

Hank appeared startled for a moment and then looked at his senior paramedic. "Uh, yea . . it's just another dispatch. The winds have already kicked up and they've spotted the first fire."

"Already?" Roy seemed surprised.

"Yea . . looks like it'll be a long season," Hank replied, not feeling as refreshed as he did a few moments ago.

Photos: None.

*  
From : crash200225 Sent : Saturday, May 7, 2005 1:53 AM Subject : [EmergencyTheaterLive] Adding Up

The harsh Santa Ana wind was beginning to pick up across the Mojave Desert area. A Sig Alert had been issued for Highway 14, the main road between L.A. and the desert. Big rigs, RVs,and buses were being warned to stay off the Freeway. The wind was well known for blowing the large vehicles over. Passenger cars and pick up trucks had a hard time staying on the road, as the strong wind would make them swerve and shake. Small dust devils were growing into a major dust storm. Long time residents knew the signs as the afternoon heat fueled the wind and prepared for the worst. Most opted to stay indoors and heaven help those stranded outside. The blowing sand would leave stinging marks on exposed areas of skin that lasted for days and eye injuries were a common complaint at the local ER's.

The wind picked up speed as it traveled from the desert, down the canyons and the Freeway towards the San Bernadino Mountains and, eventually, the City of Angels itself. It had many names, but whatever it was called, it meant serious trouble. Many had begun to call it the Devil Winds. It lived up to that name. Gusts of 100 miles per hour or more, where not unheard of. A cigarette, carelessly thrown out of a car window, was all it took for the wind to whip an burning ember into a raging brushfire.

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Cap was worried. It had been a wet winter and spring that allowed alot of new plant growth in the canyons and hills. The once lush plants were now just very dry tender waiting to go up in flames. The brush had not been this overgrown since before he had joined the Fire Department. To make matters worse, homeowners ignored the instructions to keep empty lots and areas surrounding their houses clear of the dry brush and tumbleweeds. ::A long season indeed.::he thought. ::Better get started on the brush and wildfire drills::

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Photos: None.

*  
From : Cory Anda Sent : Monday, May 9, 2005 2:48 PM Subject : Divining Doom..

Cap helped himself to the pot of Jaimaican dark that Chet had just finished brewing by taking it directly out of the stocky firefighter's hands even in the act of pouring.  
"Kelly,...hope you don't mind."

"Not at all, Cap. It'll behoove me to provide the caffeine to the worst addict first around here. Isn't that right, Gage?"

"Yep. Eases the symptoms of withdrawal and in Cap's case, it'll eliminate a severe case of the crankies.." he said whole heartedly,  
with a frown as he ambled into the kitchen from the vehicle bay on Roy's heels.

"I am not cranky..." Hank insisted with a sharp tone. Then he replayed mentally how his own sentence came out of his mouth.  
"Well, maybe just a little. A hot shower only soothes so far. You know how I hate fourplex fires. They take forever to knock down.  
And there's always an interior wall collapse into the basement to worry about."

"What I can't understand, Cap, is why you're still steaming. And I don't mean from the shower." Johnny complained, setting down his as yet unread and unbundled newspaper. "Kelly's right. You HAVE been on edge today."

Roy gathered at Cap's side and leaned on the countertop, asking with a silent holding of a mug thrust out, for some coffee from the coffee pot still tightly held in Cap's grip. "It's because of the memo that arrived this morning. The first hot spot's official, Johnny."

"Oh now that explains everything. Sorry, Cap. I guess it's okay to have a snarling veneer then. I would be, too, if I had to organize brush responses at L.A. fire training academy when every other fire station in the state wants to do the same thing. There's no seniority between caps, Cap." and he grinned one sided in supportive amusement.

"Don't remind me. I've had a bad feeling about the weather all day."  
Hank sighed, pouring and draining his second cup of coffee from the pot he was still holding. He filled Roy's cup almost to over brimming.

Chet finally gave up getting one for himself when he was ignored, so he sat down on the couch to give Bonnie, the station Yorkie, a scrub behind her ribboned ears. "It's not so bad. L.A. says the Santa Ana wind scale's not even a condition three yet."

Hank wasn't comforted. "Yeah, well, it's not four in the afternoon yet either, is it?" he commented, still with a sharp edge.

The other firemen didn't even flinch. They understood Cap's ire was blowing off the steam created for being in his type of occupational office.

Bonnie barked, jumping down from the couch. She skittered over to Cap's recliner, bounded up onto its black leather seat cushion, and immediately sat up on her rear haunches in a wistful whining beg.

"Cap, listen to Bonnie and sit down some. She's being your second mother again..." Chet said without looking up from the chess game he was playing with Marco. Neither fireman got up to go shower despite of being stinky, multiple shades of dirt color, and sweaty.

Marco echoed the sentiment. "Yeah, go pet her to calm your nerves a bit."

"Marco, Chet,.. De-scum-ify and make your captain feel better that way, huh?" Hank snapped in an order as he sat down in the chair to humor Bonnie. He began a brisk belly rub to shut up her vocal piercing fusses over his own stress levels. "I'll be a LOT better if I'm not smelling what I'll be up to my eyebrows in tommorrow morning.."

"No way, Cap." protested Lopez. "We're only gonna get all filthy again, so why waste the water? We're gonna need every drop we can get.." Marco said in challenge without looking up from the chessboard between Kelly and himself. He frowned when Chet took his white knight with a black rook.

Cap fell silent for the first time, unable to enforce his demand in the face of that overwhelming truth of a thing so obvious.

Roy grinned, taking a sip from his coffee mug. "What makes you so sure that we'll be on a brushfire assignment by then?"

"Because Mike Stoker isn't here.." Cap insisted loudly, rubbing his lips in worry.  
"Just take a look around you, Roy. Do you see him in here with us anywhere?" He gestured with his question.

The gang looked up and glanced around the kitchen and rec room and saw that it was true.

"Uh, oh.." trickled Chet. "He's poring over the releve' density charts again, isn't he?"

Gage's forehead furrowed. "What's a releve' chart? I've never heard of that.."

"I thought you went to first grade, Gage. Gee, knock me over with a feather, man.  
Everybody knows what releve' studies are.." quipped Chet, seriously not serious at all, just to get Johnny's goat. Then he looked up and winked at Marco,  
to let Lopez know that he was setting a prime baiting trap again.

Johnny fell right into the middle of it. "I know what releve' studies are.." said the dark haired paramedic defensively. "Releve' studies are.. studies of apparent density, Chet."

"Of what kind?" Kelly oozed, needling. "Your last statement is one hundred percent desperate digging on what I just said, and you know it. It didn't make any sense at all. Just admit you don't know something for once, Johnny and I promise I'll drop it instantly." he said silky smooth, priming his teasing jab to the max.

Gage's face fell into a struggling expression mixed with the eternal half angry look of a victim who's realized that they've just been outfoxed into admitting a weakness.  
"It's a study of...stuff that needs measuring, Chet. So quit being irritating about it."

Kelly folded his fingers together in a scholarly look of consideration completely devoid of any sting. "It's analyzing numbers of plant species and their distribution population over a given area. A fire ranger throws out a one meter by one meter PVC plastic pipe frame randomly onto a brushy slope without looking where he's throwing it. Then he goes out and extends that square to ten meters by ten using string and pikes and everything growing inside of it is sampled in great detail.  
What species is growing there and how many. Their densities in relation to each other can relate a whole lot as to what that slope'll do if it ever catches on fire. And when it might go up under Santa Ana conditions."

"It does?" said Johnny, cheek full of cookie from the platter on the table in front of him.

"Yep." said Cap, looking up, thoroughly forlorn. "Stoker's made a serious hobby of it.  
Every year since he started on at the station."

"No kidding..." said Gage, finally becoming infected with Cap's flavor of intense worry. "Well, what else kinds of things does he learn from all that math ratio stuff?"

"See for yourself. I'm too depressed to even think about it..." sighed Cap, sinking a damp chin into one of his palms.

Roy immediately got up and poured Cap his third cup of java in as many minutes.  
"Here, Cap. Drink up. It'll lessen the sting of what Stoker's fathoming out for ya.."

"Appreciate that..." Cap said, looking up and accepting the pour eagerly.

"I think I'll go with ya...." Johnny said, all uncertain curiosity.

Chet was deprived of the cream of his crafted tease and that broke his concentration on his chess game. Lopez took his queen with a nondiscreet pawn from the back of the board and Marco said, "Checkmate in six moves. Sorry, Charlie." he said, rising from his chair. He walked over to kneel by Cap and Bonnie in the recliner to help Hank calm her rising nerves over the new turn of imminent dry weather and the gang's even sharper mood changes. "Had to take the throat when it was wide open like that. Chet, don't try to do two things at once, especially if one of those things is playing chess. You'll lose every time."

"Thanks for the sage advice, Marco. You're all heart." he said, mildly miffed as he realized the series of moves to the endgame Lopez had just foreseen. "I'll remember that next time we're working a hose together. I'll just look the other way when the ceiling comes down right on top of ya."

"Oh, yeah? Then I think I'll just overlook the next live wire that pops up under your boots when I'm your rear man for concentrating on my waterwork,  
and we'll see what happens."

Roy looked up wide eyed mock shock. "Don't do that, 'll just suck us all into a full blown cardiac arrest case on him and we'll have to work hard for half an hour with CPR until we reach the hospital. Think of something else with which to avenge yourself. That plan doesn't work too well. There's too much coworker fallout." he teased.

"Oh. ...ok. I'll be devious in another direction then." said Lopez, pegging Kelly with a penetrating stare. The soot on his face only amplified the piercing white of his eyes and he didn't even blink....Not once.

"W-what other direction?" Chet said, squinting his eyes as he reset the chessboard up for a new game in vulnerable uncertainty.

"Wait and see...." said Marco mysteriously curling the end of his moustache with a fingertip.

Chet shuddered. "I hate it when he does that. Sends chills runnin up and down my spine. I think I created Frankenstein by being The Phantom around here, guys. Marco's learned from me."

"Then quit playin one up with ME when you're playing chess and you won't open yourself up to it." insisted Gage. "Thanks for the counter rib, Marco. You stopped him from messing around with my head again quite nicely."

"No problem. I know to stick by the one who usually has both the defib paddles in his hands..."

Cap snorted in mirth, still tickling Bonnie's belly until she was deep into squirming doggy heaven. Her rear foot began to dig the air in utter ectasy.

Roy chuckled, turning from his banter admiring lean in the doorway to finish his side trip to the office for Cap. "I'll go see what predictions Stoker's got for us.." he announced to everyone. Gage followed in his wake seconds later.

"You do that. And I DON'T wanna know. Keep it to yourself. A bad surprise is sometimes much better than a clearly known future in my book." Hank said empathetically.

"Ok.. My lips'll be sealed. One hundred percent." shrugged DeSoto diffidently.

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Mike Stoker was out in the vehicle bay, with a rainbow array of spray cans, spread out on the hood of the squad. He had closed the enormous glass cover on the route wall map in front of him and he was liberally applying layers of frothy bright color on specific areas of the mountains; all around their entire fire response district and service area.

Johnny's eyebrows went up when he saw Mike doing that without looking up from hastily scribbled notes from what could only be a homemade releve' study packet. Stoker already knew their map's garage scale blind and that made what he was doing even more remarkable to Gage. "What's all that red mean?" he said, waving away the water soluable paint fog cloud fumes from his already sooty nose and mouth.

Mike didn't stop what he was doing. "That's ninety five percent probability on complete uncontainment of any fire when the northeast santas hit anything over twenty miles an hour."

Kelly was a paramedics' shadow without their knowing it and when he spoke up, it made them both jump unexpectedly. "Hey, Johnny, look!" he said pointing. "That red paint's all over Bear Claw Canyon, pal. I guess the rest of us oughta start feeling real sorry for ya right about now."

"Very funny, Chet. Let me see that." And he stepped over to where Chet was squinting through the wet glazing of the largest semi translucent crimson stain.

Johnny's ranch was right in the centermost heart of red spray paint. "Uh, Mike.. C-can this uh, predic-- prediction stuff of yours ever be wrong? " he said, swallowing around a suddenly dry mouth.. "Cause I got a whole head of my ranch horses running wild in the foothills around my place and they're not always the easiest ones to locate for weather sheltering."  
"Only if we see some rain in the next two weeks." said Mike.

"Why don't I feel better hearing that?" Gage sighed, his voice quavering.

Chet wasn't beyond rubbing in salt. "Because you know how h*llish the fall devil winds can get..."

"I think I'll go back into the kitchen and join in on Cap's monster sulking fit. Sounds like a real good idea right about now.." whispered Johnny.

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Photo: The gang studying a tiny area on the garage wall map.

Photo: Gage in a helmet with a sickening realization on his face.

Photo: A mob of ranch horses running through Californian scrubland.

Photo: A raging brush fire.

Photo: Cap looking very caged.

Photo: Bonnie, intently worried in a stare.

*  
From: "Roxy Dee" Date: Thu May 12, 2005 7:51 pm Subject: Down the Devil's Throat~~

As if to taunt his words, the wind blowing outside began howling around the station's garage and the air began to heat palpably, making everybody rub their arms thoughtfully and look up at the ceiling and the bay around them.

"Just like last year." Lopez whispered.."The devil winds started at sunset then, too."

"I hate being right about them coming early like this." said Stoker.

"Doesn't mean that we'll get busy, fellas. Maybe a day or two before we go at least, right Stoker? The brush's gotta dry out first." said Chet.

Mike Stoker picked his shoulders up. "I don't know. I know I don't like these figures I'm seeing here." he said, smacking the notes he had gathered into a black spiral notepad."Not at all."

The tones went off.

"That was mighty wishful thinking, Chet. Too bad it didn't work..." smiled Roy as he and Johnny jogged to the squad for their overjackets and helmets.  
##Station 51. Small aircraft out of control along the freeway. PD has positively identified the plane as a cessna. Aviation Tower North reports three on board as of the last pilot contact at 1843 hours. 100 East Riviera Boulevard. Cross street Grant. 100 East Riviera Boulevard. Cross street Grant. Timeout : 1848.##

Cap literally ran out of the kitchen. "Thanks for trying with the coffee, Roy.  
It was nice while it lasted."

"Anytime, Cap." waved Roy from the driver's seat of the squad.  
"Let's get the show on the road." sighed Hank and he ran over to the radio mic by the wall map to acknowledge their response. "10-4. Station 51, KMG 365."

Johnny hastily rolled up his side window as Roy took a left turn onto the roadway after taking in a faceful of dust. "Man! Not hard to see why that plane's going down. Pwaghh!" and he spat grime out of his mouth into a rag he pulled from the wash kit on the floor. "We're gonna need googles for this one if the winds keep up this high. Notice how warm it's getting? It's hotter now than it was when the sun was up." he said with exasperation.

"Yeah.. Temp's sure rising. If the pilot didn't have a rich enough mix and high enough rpm, it would explain why he's in trouble. I'm not gonna even mention the crosswinds.." he shouted, hauling the wheel sharply to the right when the rescue squad was soundly buffetted by a wind gust.  
"Seems the beginning of the devils' season always brings down one or two who weren't ready for it on its opening night."

"Does Cap count as one of them?" Gage wondered.

"Don't hold your breath. You saw how he rocketted out of the kitchen.  
I made sure he had enough coffee to get him outta the blues long enough so he'd be ready for the first santa anas call. Glad it's not a fire."

"Yeah, but people are sure gonna get hurt from this." Johnny frowned ruefully.

"They always get hurt, Johnny. And they don't usually need the wind to do it."

"I know. It's just, ...this year feels different somehow. I can't quite put my finger on it." said Johnny over the wail of the sirens.

"That's just Stoker's voodoo working on ya. Don't let it get your goat. In all my thirty five years of living, I've never seen any number figure stand the test of time.  
And that includes brush burn factors like his."

"You really mean that?"

"Yeah, I do." Roy insisted, slightly worried about the eagering fishing for reassurance that he had heard in his partner's last question. He almost stopped looking at the road.

A few minutes later, they were there.

"Oh, my word..." blurted out Cap as the squad and engine rolled ahead.  
The plane was down. Sort of. It was upside down and seemingly completely stationary in the darkness, about forty feet above the road.

Chet squinted and pushed his helmet up a little higher onto his head.  
"Hey, Cap. I think that plane's hung itself up on a high power wire."

"Looks like it." said Hank. He picked up the radio mic. "Engine 51, L.A.  
We're visual contact with the distressed plane. It has crashed and is hanging on the high tension power wires over the roadway. Respond Light Truck Seventeen and a full ladder assignment along with Foam Truck 127.  
Have the utilities cut power along the wire span between,..." he aimed a powerful side spot onto a plaque at the base of each of the tower poles flanking around the swaying plane..."..substations 117A and 118B.."

##10-4, Engine 51. Will notify when the power has been cut.##

Johnny and Roy got out of the truck. For a moment, Gage thought that Roy had forgotten to turn off the sirens on the squad but then he realized it was the screaming winds causing all the noise roaring by his ears. He flipped up the collar on his turnout to block it out. "Cap?!"

Hank turned from his scrutiny of the situation from where he stood on the seat cushion of the engine while hanging onto its roof. He immediately issued their orders. "Full rappelling gear! But wait on climbing any ladder up a pole until the electric company shuts off all that juice!"

"You got it.." said Roy, turning on his spotlight, too until it aimed up at the plane's white and yellow roof. He could see no limbs or clothes or any sign of the plane's passengers or pilot through the windows.

Hank turned the spot to focus on where the plane was entangled.  
"It's caught by the landing gear! We gotta move fast. If it twists in the wind too much it'll..."

Just then there came a sharp rending sound of tearing steel cabling and stressed bolts giving way.

The firemen standing by the Ward ducked in alarm as the plane fell from where it was and flipped over in the wind, landing on its belly onto the roadway the police had cleared.

Johnny began to run forward but Cap stopped him. "Hold it! Hold it!  
Don't go barging in there without a fanning water cover! There's bound to be aviation fuel all over the place. And that fused nose prop's still hot enough to catch it with a spark in this wind! Stoker, Lopez, get out two inch and a halves on the double!"

It was only a minute later when all was set. Cap got on the loud speaker.  
"To the pilot and passengers. This is the fire department. Stay inside the plane and keep the doors shut. We're coming in to get you.  
If you heard me and can respond, wave out a window!"

There came no movement at all. And it was impossible to hear any shouting over the wind.

Roy and Johnny worked even faster to lay out their medical gear and plane skin cracking equipment. And Cap helped, even as he continued to update L.A. on what just happened.

"Cap!! We got trouble!" shouted Marco suddenly. "It's the wind!  
It's flipping the plane!"

"The wind is doing what?!" hollered Cap, running around the front of the engine.

The plane once again began to move, pushed by a powerful, almost angry, night santa ana wind gust.

"Watch it close!! Marco, Kelly!" hollered Cap. "Follow! Follow it !! Keep the engine and fuselage under your hose wash!! If there's even so much as a spark under there, this whole roadway'll go up! Aw, gahhhhH! Roy, Johnny. Help me tie this thing off before it lifts up on us!" Chet and Marco smothered the places where the plane was dragging along the pavement with hastily coordinated gushes of water. They barely pushed away the spreading fuel puddle that the wind was blowing a few feet ahead of it.

Hurrying, Cap, Johnny and Roy flung two sets of lassoed ropes over the tail section in a V. Each paramedic tied a rope to a telephone pole until the plane finally was jerked to a shuddering halt. Cap followed up by knotting a double strength rope over an intact wing. Quickly, under a protective water spray, he secured it to the engine's bumper. "Mike, back her on up! I want all of these anchor lines tight enough to keep the plane perfectly still until Foam 127 gets here!"

Grunting, working hard, Gage, DeSoto, Stanley and Stoker, finally managed it.

Like a calf pinned between a pair of header and footer rodeo horsemen, the fallen cessna locked into immobility between the two power poles and the idling engine.

Then Cap gasped, leaning on his knees. "Gage, DeSoto. Get our reel line on it, too! I want this asphalt washed down as good as you can get it! Under no circumstances are you to go near the plane until she's buried to the roof in foam. Is that understood?!"

The two paramedics nodded.

The wind suddenly rose so strong, that Chet and Marco had to aim the hose while lying on the ground in the darkness.

Cap returned to the loud speaker and began hailing the injured people a second time, warning them to stay inside the plane's cabin.

It seemed an eternity until Truck 127 got there.

Photo: Marco, Cap and Chet looking up at something near the engine.

Photo: A cessna hanging from a power wire, at dusk.

Photo: A close up of a cessna hanging from a power line by its landing gear.

Photo: Chet, Johnny and Stoker duck near the engine.

Photo: Squad 51 near a plane down on the ground.

Photo: Cap pulling on a taut rope, grimacing.

Photo: Chet and Marco blowing over at night with a fanning hose.

*  
From : Cory Anda Sent : Sunday, May 15, 2005 10:26 PM Subject : The Broken End

Hank got on the loud speaker the moment 127's sirens were flipped off. "Truck 127. We've got people still in the plane and leaking fuel is moving downwind towards traffic! Lay your foam from the southwest ASAP. The plane's already been heavily secured with ropes." he shouted over the howl of the dusty wind.

Angrily, he reached into the Ward and put on his brush goggles so that he could see everything without his eyes stinging from the blowing grit flying through the air. He whistled, until the rest of his men did the same thing.

Soon, the cloth tunnel from two foam units were liberally coating the dark roadway and pillowing a blanket of soupy white foam in a thick layer around the airplane.

Captain Stanley waved Johnny and Roy ahead with their gear.  
"Gage! DeSoto! Watch yourselves in there! We'll have three stokes ready before you radio out to Rampart. Stay on your HTs continuously!"

"Right, Cap.." said Gage.

The plane's fall accomplished what the tools would've done. The pilot's door had been forced ajar from the force of impact with the ground. Johnny waded into the chest high fire suppressant foam and pulled it open. He scooped the flowing foam away from the plane's cabin to see the face of a man lying slumped over the pilot's controls. He quickly peeled off a glove to feel for a carotid without moving him. Roy began to work on crowbar popping the passengers' wing door inside the river of foam.

He began to be grateful for the googles when the wind began to pile up the stuff up higher than his head. Roy jammed his back into the door space between the body of the plane and the door itself to keep it out as he shouted to his partner. "How is he? I got two female victims. One in her forties, the other a teenager. Both appear to be unconscious.."

Johnny shoved his goggles up onto his forehead as he pulled out his penlight to examine the pilot's eyes. "He's a code F. Pupils are blown both sides with no pulses discernable at all." he said pulling off his stethoscope.  
A further check with his hands found a grossly fractured spine through his shirt just above the man's chest level even though he couldn't see the white splintering of bone. "An open fracture of his back is above T3. He's gone."

"Both of the passengers are still alive. Come in through my way, Johnny.  
The door on the other side's been crushed like a tin can. I'm afraid we don't have the time to take to cut through it. The mother's in Cheynes Stokes pattern with heavy cyanosis and the girl's in deep shock. The daughter's got a bad pelvis injury. Her left leg's grossly turned." Roy reported as he crouched over the older woman to aid her respirations.

Johnny slid on his goggles again and waded by touch through the flowing foam until his gloves hit the back of Roy's canvas turnout jacket. His terse report out sounded muffled in the deep stuff and the wind's screaming was mercifully, bubble filtered. "Cap! We've two female survivors. We'll need the resuscitator and an ambu run in now! Get the mast suit laid out second."

##10-4, Squad 51. Chet and Marco are on their way in now.## came Cap's speakered voice next to his ear.

Roy looked up after giving a first mouth to nose breath to the mother through his jaw thrust hold. "Johnny, she's good and clear. Is the bag coming?"

"Yeah. It's thirty seconds away along with the O2.."

"Johnny!?" came Kelly's voice. Abruptly, the wind's shriek returned when the stocky fireman burst through the wall of fire foam with the tank and breathing apparatus.

"Over here. Hand it over. Got a short airway with ya, too?" Gage asked.

"Yeah, two are taped to the mask! I hope they're the right size.. I heard about two females."

"Yep. These are fine. Roy!" said Gage, passing off the bag valve mask even as he strung it to the upright oxygen tank.

DeSoto tore off one of the taped oral airways and finger scissored it into place deftly into the mother's mouth. He began hyperventilating the woman with the bag while Kelly secured cervical collars on both the passengers.

Chet glanced down at the teenager's slack face. "How she doing breathing wise? Does she need help, too?"

Gage shook his head. "She's fair. Get an oxygen mask on her. I'm gonna look for more bleeding past this femur and hip fracture." he told Chet after he got the girl airway secured using the second one Chet had brought. Johnny split the clothes off the slight teenager and found a rigid distended abdomen when the jeans fell away. "Guarding, Roy. All quadrants."

"She gets out first..." DeSoto said.

"I'm on it. I'll get the guys in here with her spine board..." said Kelly and he disappeared.

Right then, the foam cocooned around the plane lit up with a soft white light as the Light Truck got her lamp tower turned on.

Roy sighed when the mother's new skin color glowed under it with a healthier sheen of pink. "That's better. Always good to see what who your working on. Johnny, the mother's pupils are equal and reactive."

"Good deal..She wasn't dyspneic too long. Maybe the breath was just knocked out of her when the plane fell off the wires."  
Johnny guessed.

"There's more going on here than just that. She's got a depressed skull fracture, over her left temple. I've got Battle's sign, too."  
Roy said, bagging the mother carefully. "Hey!" he shouted out of the plane. "I need a ventilator in here ASAP!"

A goggled man from truck 127 wormed his way into the plane. "Got her.."  
he said, taking over breathing for the woman using the ambu bag.  
"Fellas, the foam's well down. All your fire danger's over."

"Thanks.." Johnny said, getting a blood pressure reading on the young teen. "You guys work fast."

"I don't like being slow at airplane calls. They like to blow up far too often for my taste." said the fireman. "Is this rate good?" he asked Roy.

"Yeah, a little fast like that's a good thing. It should slow her cerebral swelling a bit." said the foam dotted paramedic as he ran hands over the mother to find out her other injuries. "Watch for vomiting. She made do some with that head injury."

"I'm all eyes."

Soon, Gage, DeSoto, Kelly and Lopez had the two women out of the plane on longboards and stokes with the daughter's blanketed additionally with mast trousers. "Cap, we're gonna need the traction splint for the girl! This femur's causing complications. Her left foot pulse's absent!" Roy shouted as the bunch of firefighters assigned to the plane moved the passengers out of the roadway and away from the plane.

Gage looked up sharply at that even as he radioed out to Rampart.

Hank jogged over with the Hare a minute later, still wearing his googles.  
"How about for the mother?"

"Just a suction set up..." DeSoto said.

"In seconds, pal." said Cap as he watched Kelly and Marco scramble to lay the victims gently down by the sheltering side of the rescue squad out of the hot santa ana winds. The glare from the generator lamps on the Light Truck cast surreal shadows on the badly hurt mother and daughter. It made all their blood reddened wounds wash into pallid shades of purple gray.

Roy glanced up at Marco. "Help me stop this leg bleeding. This is from an arterial cut so don't worry about hurting her any. The fracture's not open. I'm going to go get a set of vitals on the mother.."

"Pressure point?"

"No. Use direct pressure. That foot's circulation's been compromised enough.  
Also that sagging femur's hidden the femoral artery you'd need. If she's still bleeding real bad after we get the Hare traction on, ignore what I said and switch over to that groin point until it works. You'll have the bone shaft back to push on then."

Lopez nodded his goggled face, tight with concentration.

Johnny shouted his hail once again to get his voice louder than the wind.  
"Rampart this is Squad 51. How do you read?"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Johnny opening a plane door.

Photo: An unconscious teenager on her back.

Photo: A rolling cockpit view of a crashing plane.

Photo: Chet grabbing a Hare traction splint from the squad.

Photo: Firemen spraying foam thickly over a fuel spill.

Photo: Gage covering a dead man.

Photo: Roy and Marco working over a victim.

*  
From : patti keiper Sent : Saturday, May 21, 2005 4:56 PM Subject : From the Devil's Mouth..

Dixie McCall looked up from the patient chart she was working on when the red light above the door of the glassed in base station started flashing. She dropped what she was doing and entered the tiny room. "Unit calling Rampart, would you repeat your transmission?" she asked as she turned on the audio recorder next to the alcove receiver.

##Rampart, this is Rescue 5-1.##

Dixie punched the talk button again even as her other hand picked up the black paging phone to the hospital operator.  
"Go ahead, 51. I read you loud and clear."  
Dixie began to jot down Johnny's findings with one hand and got a doctor tipped off about the incoming paramedic call she had. She squinted when the finer details of Gage's voice were nearly drowned out by the high winds in his area. ::Oh, it's started already? Kel's not gonna like knowing the Santa Anas are here so early.:: she thought to herself. They sounded un-usually bad for 51, who was showing up on the frequency's indicator in their usual service area inside the valley.

"I found I.D.s in wallets on both 've the same last name, Johnny." Stoker said, squatting down by him.

"Ok, thanks, Mike." Gage nodded.

Johnny began shouting. ##Rampart, I have three victims of a vertical fall from over thirty feet sustained while inside an airplane. Victims one and two, are unconscious females who are a confirmed mother and daughter pair.  
Victim one is approximately sixteen years of age with probable pelvic and femur fractures with extensive abdominal guarding. Most likely from additional internal injuries. Pulses in her effected extremity are absent. An unrelated arterial wound over her left leg is now under active bleeding control. I estimate around 800 cc's blood loss. She's now on sixteen liters of O2. Victim two is fifty,..##Gage said reading the age on the I.D. that Mike had found on the mother. ##Found in marked Cheynes/Stokes respirations. She has a depressed skull fracture over her left temple area also with early Battle's sign. She is under assisted ventilations. So far, we've no evidence of abnormal isipilateral pupillary responses.  
Both victims are C-spine immobilized. Victim Three is male#  
Gage looked up when Roy slapped his notepad against his jacket's arm that contained pen scribbled details....##....deceased from his injuries.## He took it and bent it into the truck tower's light to read it. ##Vital signs are: Victim one, BP 76/50, respirations.. ah,.. 28 and shallow. Pulse is 140, rapid and weak. She is acutely diaphoretic.  
Victim two, BP is 152/120. Respirations unassisted are eight, but she's no longer showing an abnormal CNS respiratory pattern. Pulse is sixty and regular. No obvious signs of other injury...Rampart, note that we have mast trousers already set up and standing by for victim number one.##

Dixie's fingers flew. "10-4, 51. On victim one, go ahead and apply her suit first, inflating only the chambers over her uninjured leg and abdominal areas until her blood pressure elevates out of shock. Then secure your needed traction. For victim two, maintain assisted ventilations. Keep both victims' body temperatures warm after drying them off." the nurse suggested,  
already knowing that a plane crash meant fuel leaks and that fuel leaks were always handled with a light water fan raining over the rescuing firefighters. "A doctor is on his way to advise you further. Stand by."

##Squad 51,....standing by...## yelled Johnny over the roaring winds. He looked up at Cap and the others crouching over the daughter. "We got permission..Make it fast.." he motioned to them about the Hare traction splint and the antishock pants go ahead for the daughter.  
"Let me know when you guys get a pedal pulse on that foot! Stoker, get us some blankets, would ya?"

"Grabbing em.." he said.

Marco spoke up, spitting some dust out of his mouth.  
"Johnny, there's nothing in this leg wound at all from what I can tell." he said adding another dressing on top of the soaked ones under his gloves.  
"I've got a whole lotta pooling. But it's no longer spurting."

"Has it stopped yet?" Roy asked Lopez from where he was listening to the mother's breath sounds with a stethoscope.

"Yeah. For the most part. But she's wet from the hose wash, I don't know if this cut's clotted up completely enough or not yet." the hispanic fireman frowned from where he was leaning over the girl using most of his weight.

"We just have to stay ahead of it.." Roy smiled at him through his goggles. "Once these I.V.s go in, just tape that up best you can." he said lofting a pair of Ringers and one normal saline line over his shoulder while he spiked three bags. Then he studied the care being given to the mother.  
"Monroe, slow to normal vents on her. I'm not getting any bad cerebral swelling symptoms here." he said watching the older woman's face and the area around her eyes. "And another point in our favor..She's not getting nauseated."  
he said, glancing at her bare abdomen's quiet breath rises and falls, which were entirely free of queasy tensing or rocking motions.

Gage propped the biophone receiver onto his neck as he rechecked the young teenager's vital signs. When he was through, Dr. Brackett had come on the line. ##Squad 51, start two large bore Ringer's wide open on victim one. Draw a red top for a type and cross. Start a normal saline TKO with 0.5g/kg of mannitol over 20 minutes, I.V.,on your second victim. I want to stave off any uncal herniation from that skull fracture site on the mother. Let me know if you regain a pulse after stabilizing that sagging femur fracture on the daughter. And I want EKG readings on both as soon as you can get them."

Johnny acknowledged a reply and repeated their medical orders back to Brackett. He nodded when he got a smile from Cap about regained circulation in the broken leg stretched inside the Hare traction splint.

Crawling around to the teenager's chest, Stanley began to put EKG pads on her after drying off her skin with an edge of a blanket from several brought by Stoker. Hank then thought of their time factor situation and saved over a minute by throwing open the defibrillator. He lifted out and then set ungelled paddles onto the mother's ribs and stomach in their usual frame around the heart for a faster way to send in the second strip to Dr. Brackett after he had the daughter wired up.

Gage vigorously nodded approval over that plan and he made the adjustment on the biophone radio to carry the other cardiac signal from them.

Roy shifted his attention to the teenager after passing off the mother's mannitol piggybacked I.V. to a waiting ambulance attendant. Then he scrambled over to Johnny and plucked the phone from him so he could finish starting the younger girl's I.V.s without getting a crimp in his neck.  
He picked up the pad Johnny had added to and read it aloud. "Rampart,  
all medications are in. Both EKGs will be Lead Two. One hard wired, the other through the datascope." he said.

##Understood, 51. We're all set here for those cardiac readings.## he said,  
after turning on the secondary defib/heart reader next to the always-running-hot, usual one.

Gage looked to Monroe. "Ok, pause for a sec while we send hers in..." he told the firefighter working the mother's ambu bag. Monroe stopped his vents and carefully made sure that he wasn't touching the mother so his own heart rhythm wouldn't read out through the defib paddles Hank was pressing down firmly.

After half a minute, Brackett came back on the line. ##Looking good on both, 51. I'm seeing no arrythmias anywhere and I note victim one's sinus tach rate of 140, which is more than stable enough for me in this stage of the game.##

"10-4, Rampart." said DeSoto. "Ok, Cap. You can put em away. Thanks.  
Monroe, it's ok now to start up on her again."

Stanley sighed and repackaged the defibrillator shut. He carried it over to the daughter and set it on the long board between her knees next to the upended datascope still running a live feed off her where the two paramedics could watch it. Without being told, he took the tube of blood Roy had gotten and taped it to one of the teenager's I.V. lines for safe keeping after marking down what time it had been drawn with a pen from his pocket.

Dr. Brackett suffered a sudden after thought. ##51, how's that foot doing now?##

Roy glanced up at Chet who was still giving the thumbs up from his place at the ankle end of the Hare traction splint. "Pink and pulsing, Rampart."

##Good. Get both your victims in here as soon as possible, 51. Go ahead and radio any further complications if and when they arise and gimme new sets of vital signs every five minutes.##

"10-4, Rampart. Transporting as soon as possible. Our ambulances are on scene. Our estimated ETA to you is twelve minutes." said Roy.

##This is Rampart base, signing out.## replied Brackett.

There was no place more welcoming than the inside of the two spacious Mayfairs away from the raging bite of the hot winds. Gage wasn't aware of the tiny abrasions over his eyelids until he tried to rub them free of dirt after pulling off his dusty goggles. He placed his live HT onto a knee. "Roy, I'll meet you there. I've got the daughter loaded."

DeSoto replied from his own rig. ##O.K., Johnny. The mother's now breathing ok on her own without us helping her.##

Gage grinned at his ambulance attendant wrapping up the long boarded daughter in a heated blanket. "That's a good sign all around, Roy. My victim's pressure is now in the low nineties with just Dixie's recommended light mast inflation. And Marco's tape job is staunching the worst bleeding well from the leg so far. I didn't need a hemostat for that laceration at all. But I wish I could wash my face and irrigate both my eyes out right about now. The wind's skinned me alive."

##Count your blessings, junior. We won back two out of three straight outta the devil's mouth. Your poor hide's a small price to pay for that kind of score card.##

"I suppose you're right, pally. But next call, I'm donning my whole entire scba setup whether we need it or not. I like to keep my face's skin in one piece thank you very much."

##Good idea. Think I'll copy ya, too. Betcha I'll be faster getting into mine.##

"No bet. I don't think either of us'll win that race. Absolutely nobody hates this wind storming up more than Cap does. He leaped back into the Ward cab to get out of the weather so fast, I thought he broke a few hinges on the engine's door. I honestly think that he'll be sleeping in his air gear tonight, Roy, and in his bunk, too. Complete with helmet and all."

##I wouldn't be surprised. Tell you what? How about we both get checked out by a doc when we get there. I kinda banged my shoulder a bit slipping on some foam.##

"You did? Well, why didn't you say so?!" Gage complained into his walkie talkie's speaker.

##Uh,, I didn't feel it, not until I got in here where it's quiet. Kinda the same story you just related to me about your face and eyes.##

"Ok, you got me on that. I'll stop yelling cause I'm guilty of the same crime about hiding an injury. I got more than just my face. I got my hand pinched in the pilot's seat getting over to him."

##Ice and elevate, partner.##

"Not until you do."

##Can't do that, my shoulder doesn't lift any higher.##

"You know what I mean..." sighed Gage wearily.

##Yeah, I know what you mean. See you at the hospital. I think Lopez's bringing us the squad.##

"Hope he manages to snag us all a few burgers on the way in. I'm starving."

##Just don't go starting any I.V. on yourself. I'd hate to fill out all the paperwork after a doctor finds out about you pulling a stunt like that.##

"All right, all right. I'll just choke down a "gluke" tube or two."

##Those'll work. At least eating sugar leaves no traces. I'll vouch for ya with the supply requisitions for getting new ones. We really had a ton of hypoglycemic kid calls the last few days, didn't we?##

Gage could practically hear Roy's teasing wink over the HT. He bit the ends off both sugar tubes and starting sucking. "Wish I can hide my face, Roy. Dixie's gonna fuss over me something awful."

##I'll just moan a little louder over my shoulder, Johnny. That way, the problem's solved. She'll spend less time dabbing all that alcohol over those scratches of yours for worrying over me. I know how much you hate that kind of first aid.##

"I can't help being such a sensitive guy.."

##I know you can't. Now shut up and eat before you faint. Just make sure you keep an eye on the daughter's monitor while you're doing it.##

"Mother's helper."

##Yep. I am one in this ambulance. Only makes sense to spread the wealth around a little. HT 51, out.## said Roy smugly.

Gage leaned forward to tap on the driver to cab window of the ambulance and rapped on it once. It opened. "Say, Malcolm. Kill the sirens, kay?  
No one can hear us for all this wind anyway. The reds'll be enough. I could use a little less noise and I'm sure she can, too." he said, pointing to his patient.  
"Getting some rest is a good thing."

"Uh huh.." said the driver with mild fatigue. The flip door snapped shut.

"Typical." Johnny grumbled to the other attendant. "Be glad you two aren't firefighters. Cause I've a feeling that my whole station'll be spending the the rest of the week out in that howling mess out there. You haven't lived until your ears are ringing from Santa Ana wind shrieks. Try sleeping with that going on. Cause that's what I've got going on right now, real bad."

Malcolm's partner smiled supportively and reached up to scratch on the peek window with a few nails, softly.

Johnny looked up with surprise when the sirens actually turned off.

"Mine are ringing, too, man. And so are his up front. We've been waiting for one of you paramedics to actually ask for silent mode. It took a smart guy like you to finally do it. And I mean that in a nice way."  
said the attendant.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Dixie picking up the red phone inside base station.

Photo: Roy and Johnny rolling a victim over in a small space.

Photo: Johnny and Roy help a C-spine long boarded teenager.

Photo: Malcolm and another ambulance attendant.

Photo: The defibrillator datascope from above.

Photo: Cap listening to something with scba gear on.

*  
From: "Cassidy Meyers" Date: Mon May 23, 2005 5:27 pm Subject: The Hornet's Nest..

Johnny and Roy arrived to the hospital and passed off their two patients to Dr. Morton and Dr. Brackett, who immediately set in to get the two fall victims into surgery.

Dixie McCall, on the other hand, was parked in her usual place at the front desk of the emergency room, hemmed in by constantly ringing phones. The two on the wall and the white one in front of her were nearly jumping off their hooks.

"Rampart, emergency. This is Dixie McCall. How can I help you?"  
she said into the receiver even while she picked up a second and plunked it onto her shoulder. She flashed the two dusty, foam flecked firefighters a look of instant desperation. "Rampart emergency, can you hold?"

Gage immediately pointed, seeing the need for another rescue.  
"Want us to answer some of those? Uh,...are we allowed to?"

"Feel free. The entire hospital switchboard's overwhelmed with calls and every treatment room's occupied. You just gave us our last two patients. The rest of the ambulance inbounding have been diverted to other hospitals." she said quickly.

"It's been that busy?!" Johnny said incredulously.

"You have to ask?" McCall whimpered. "The d*mned wind's made everybody go crazy tonight. What hasn't happened? Your downed plane was a piece of cake compared to runs the other boys've been on." she said, throwing a careless hand at the status board full of red and yellow magnets. Every one of them was slid over into the on-scene column. Dixie took a deep breath and then she set both phones over her ears and started talking. "Ok, the worst first. Maam, go ahead. Sir, you're second. Go."

Gage awkwardly reached for a ringing phone with haste to ease the worst of Dixie's phone burden.

Roy, in the meantime, started digging in the supply cupboard for the things they needed on his own. He reached around Dixie's shoulders for the supply forms even as he kissed the top of her head in friendly encouragement. "Hang in there. If you drop in your tracks, don't worry. Gage and I have an oxygen tank and EKG monitor right here.." he said jerking a head over to the squad equipment they had brought out of the treatment room with them.

Dixie rolled her eyes and kept talking. "You say he's got dust in his eyes from the wind and can't open them? All right. Are you near a sink?" she asked the woman.

Then she shifted her head and spoke with the man on the white phone. "Sir, we can't do anything about your insomnia. Have you tried a warm milk toddy?"

And on and on it went. Minor call after minor call. For around ten minutes.

Marco Lopez soon arrived and waved at Roy. He caught wind of the flood of calls and took prompt advantage of it. He sat down next to Roy in a vacant waiting room chair to leaf through the paper, ignoring Gage who was swamped and now wrapped in phone cords. He ignored Johnny's looks to come help out. "Sorry, can't. I'm not a nurse or paramedic.  
Not allowed." he shrugged.

By the time the phone slam was over, even Johnny was sweating for taking down so many notes and offering out fast and pointless first aid advice to all the petty concern callers he had spoken to. He hung up his last caller in exasperation.  
"Man, Dixie.. Have all of these phone calls been as pointless and stupid as the nine I took?"

"Yep." said McCall, wearily collapsing a head on the desk. Gage chivalrously got her a cup of coffee, complete with a dimpled napkin.

"I've already been stimulated enough, thanks. You drink it. You're still hungry."

Johnny did a double take. "How did you know, Dix?"

"You still got gluke paste on your lips. Here.." she said without looking up.  
The paper napkin full of jaunty flowers was thrust up into his face. "Give me a bit to reboot my brain and I'll see about getting the treatment room you guys need for your bumps and bruises..."

"Wait a minute, how did y--" Gage was about to say. "Never mind.." he said.  
"I just gotta learn that your powers of telepathy are just as good as Stoker's weather voodoo."

Dixie lifted her hair strewn exhausted head up at that. "Huh?"

"Nothing. Roy and I just got an inside track from our engineer about how the winds are gonna nail us..." Gage sighed expansively. Then he regarded the coffee cup and walked fingers over to it. "Are you sure you don't mind?"  
he said, hungry eyes fastening on the cup of coffee.

"Be my guest..." Dixie said, parking a frazzled head onto her hands folded over the dozens of notes she and Johnny had taken. "Drink up! It may be the last meal you'll ever--" Then she jerked, reaching for a phone on the wall behind her.

Gage stopped her with a grab. "Dixie.."

"What?!"

"It's not ringing yet..."

"Oh... It isn't? Sorry. Thanks. I can't tell anymore. My ears are still ringing and so's my whole head."

"Really?" piped up Roy, folding over to the horse racing section.  
"Funny that. So our ours." he laughed without humor. "Say, Dixie. Ya got any ear pl--"

Dixie's hand tipped up a box of styrofoam ear plugs that she had next to the tissue box. It was already half empty. "Help yourself. The other paramedics already have. Amply. Better safeguard your hearing now, boys. Ayers is booked solid dealing with ear trauma cases. Did you know that five cases of perforated eardrums filed on in here in just the last hour alone?"

"No kidding.." said Marco, looking surprised. "Caused by all this wind?"

"Yep." nodded Dixie tiredly. "A straight line's perfect for kicking up stones and litter from off the ground. City missiles.. Joe's coined them."

"Wonderful. A new malady for the santa ana's already growing list."  
Roy sighed. His stomach growled, making it over the screeching of the winds outside the entrance doors. "He should write a paper and capitalize on it."

"He already has." Dixie said. Then she reached for Johnny's eyelid scratched and puffing face. "Ooo, those look like they smart.."

DeSoto immediately made good his promise and jerked in a twinge.  
"Oww, d*mned shoulder! Ooo. Next time, Johnny. You crawl under the plane to reach someone. I'm too big to play." he fussed exaggeratedly.

It worked. Dixie immediately magneted over to Roy's side and plunked down on the empty seat next to him. "The left one?"

"Yeah, it's nothing."

"Pretty painful nothing, Roy. Can you move it full range?"

"Enough to feed myself, which is all I'm interested in." DeSoto said,  
sniffing at Marco's jacket. "Lopez.. tell me you stopped at the burger stand.." he said indignantly. "You're not smelling like smoke here."

"Didn't have time. I got an ambulance on my butt and had to scoot in fast so I wouldn't slow them down while getting here." Marco told him.

"What ambulance?" Roy glared, some of his humor sliding away.  
"I don't see one..."

"Roy, blame me. That one was probably the one I sent to Regents when I saw you two filing in with our last two criticals." Dixie said.  
"Here, let me get you some ice.." she said, rising to get some from a wheeled specimen cooler next to the drinking fountain.

Gage drained half the coffee pot before he remembered his coworkers and sheepishly offered them some into two mugs.  
"Do I dare ask the question?"

Roy glared again. "Don't, junior. You'll jinx us.."

"Ok.. ok.. I won't. Seems the fire radio's quiet enough though.  
It's not even scanning." Gage said, throwing a head at the all band sitting above the ekg monitor outside the base station.

Dixie kept her tongue still to honor superstition and pointed back at the status board with a pencil, even as she nestled an ice bag under Roy's shirt over his sore spot.

Not one magnet labelled fire had been moved into action.

"That's a minor mercy if I ever saw one.." DeSoto said.  
"Dix, that wind is bad. Real bad. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole mountain range ringing us went up in smoke."

"Roy!! Cut it out. You'll make me think about my ranch again."  
said Johnny, almost spilling his coffee.

"What about your ranch, Johnny?" Dixie said, distracted.

"It's in the line of f...i...r..e." he said spelling it out. "Literally.  
I just hope I remembered to renew my homeowner's insurance,  
or I'll get to be the proud owner of a twenty acre pile of ashes."

"Don't fret until it's a reality Johnny, or you'll just burn yourself out on it."

"Too late. I already have." Gage sighed, finishing his mug.

Dixie grabbed Marco's grimy chin, examining it gently. "Are you banged up, too?" Her eyes drifted to the stains of blood around his sleeves that he had gotten from helping the daughter out.

"Nah, Dixie. None of this is mine. I'm just the squad driver." he answered. "I just haven't hosed off yet."

"Use the doc's locker room. You can't walk into a hamburger stand looking like a war casualty." she sniffed.

Lopez rose eagerly. "Thanks, Dix, for the invitation. Best offer I've had all night. I'll go shower off my jacket. I promise to disinfect afterwards."

"Never doubted you for a moment, Marco." McCall smiled, watching him retreat for the locker room.

"That's not fair.." Roy whined. "We can't do the same thing.  
We got all this equipment and all these supplies to watch."

"Nice perk for being a regular fireman.." Dixie said. "Maybe you should quit the paramedic program and regain it back."

"Not a chance. I like my extra pay.." DeSoto grumbled.  
"I've got kids, remember?"

"Hush.. you're just crabby cause you're hungry. Here." Dixie mothered, grabbing a gluke tube out of her uniform pocket.  
"Eat before Joe sees that shoulder of yours if you want to stay on duty. Your pressure's probably sky high compensating for your low blood sugar and foul mood."

Roy moused down sheepishly and began slurping down the sugar.

"Good boy... Now for some cof--" she broke off. "Guys..you didn't leave any left for me.." she said snatching the empty clear glass pot from Johnny's dusty hand.

Gage hastily ran for the coffee brewer to make some more just for her.

-  
Joe Early completed his examination of Roy's shoulder. "I don't think you tore your rotator cuff, Roy. It's probably just a strain. It should clear up in a couple of days if you take it easy."

"Don't think I can take it easy, doc. Not when the Santa anas are blowing.." Roy smiled.

"Don't remind me. This is the slowest I've been all day." Dr. Early snorted. "You can go ahead and put your shirt back on."

"So is he gonna live?" Johnny grinned.

"A long and healthy life. That is if he eats how I keep telling you firefighters how to eat. Boys, you're getting sloppy again. I can smell the glucose paste on your breaths from here."

Roy and Johnny both blushed a proper shade of red. "We promise to hit the hamburger stand."

"Make sure you mean that hypothetically. I've already taken care of a pair of paramedics who wrecked their squad when a wind gust blew a roof down in front of it."

"No kidding. Roy, did you hear a call for that over your HT?! I sure didn't." Johnny's face dropped into horror. "They ok, doc? Who's was it?"

"It was out of your district. They're fine. But I can't tell you what station. I've been sworn to secrecy about it at their request."

"That's ok. Knowing Charlie the mechanic, we'll all find out about it before midnight.." Roy said, smiling. "He knows nothing about sparing anyone a little embarrassment. And that's not even his worst trait."

"Sounds like one h*ll of a mechanic." Joe preambled.

"He is. I swear, doc. He treats the squad and engine better than we do our patients.." Gage laughed. "Are we done?"

"Yep. That is if you still don't want anyone messing with your facial abrasions." Dr. Early said, pointing to Johnny's eyes.

Johnny sagged. "They're only gonna get dirty again anyway during a fire or something. Why bother?"

"Because germs aren't our friends, Johnny." DeSoto piped up.  
"Doc, he wouldn't even let me clean him up."

"Maybe your Captain Stanley can convince him when you guys reach the fire command center.." Dr. Early said.

Both paramedics stopped short. "Wh-- what do you mean fire command center?" Roy stammered.

Joe simply pointed to the scanner radio on top of the defibrillator in the room. "We've been put on High Alert, boys. Seems half of Malibu's already on fire. Go to the nurse's lounge after we're done here and go check it out on TV. Johnny, your fire district's the only one not yet locked into a full firefight. So I suggest you grab some chow while you still have the time cause I've a feeling that things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better. And you'll be doing it alone. Rampart's been put out of the picture cause we're already at full bed capacity. Good luck, boys. Needless to say, I'll be thinking about you fellas a whole lot while you're stuck up there." And with that, the sympathetic soft spoken doctor, left the room.

"Roy.." Johnny gasped.

"What?!" overreacted Roy even as he struggled back into his grimy T shirt. He was still shaky from his hunger and still grumpy.

"I"m gonna kill Stoker."

"Why?" DeSoto asked, uncovering his head finally.

"Because he's proving himself right. Malibu's straight upwind from my ranch."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Dixie's very busy front desk and Roy and Johnny.

Photo: Roy getting treated by Joe Early.

Photo: A raging mountain fire bearing down on the suburbs.

Photo: A tube of insta-glucose paste.  
******************************************************************** Date: Sat, 28 May 2005 13:27:01 -0700 (PDT) From: "Jeff Seltun" Subject: Base of Operations..

"You don't know that for certain. We haven't even seen the news bulletins yet." Roy reasoned, jumping off the exam table.

"Oh, yes I do. I got a good look at the station wall map today,  
remember? Adrenaline's great for imprinting instant and total recall of whatever your eyes are stuck on when you've been jolted by sheer horror like I was, seeing all that red painted over my ranch." Gage grumbled irritatedly.

"Johnny, those were hypothetical numbers. They weren't even real.  
How can you be horrified by something you can't even taste,  
touch or feel?" Roy asked as the two medics gathered up their medical gear. Marco Lopez whizzed on by them whistling, and divested DeSoto of the heavy defibrillator on their way out to the squad. "Give one example of something where that's true and I'll eat my shorts."

"Carbon monoxide gas, Roy. Start salting em, cause you just lost the argument."  
Gage said without a smile.

"Hmph. Can't. Or I'll get indigestion and have to have an emergency gastrectomy to pull em back out again." DeSoto quipped, level faced.

"Quit being so literal, Roy. I only said that because it actually made me feel better for a few seconds." Johnny said honestly. Then he started chewing his fingernails again.

DeSoto slapped his hand away from his mouth. "Yuck. Nothing like foam residue for lunch, eh?"

"Fire foam can't hurt us." Gage said, opening his passenger door and motioning for Marco to get into the squad in between him and his partner.

"That's what they said about those asbestos tarps we used to have for years and years. You don't see them in our trucks anymore, do you?" DeSoto sighed.

He started up the engine. Just as he was doing so, Dixie McCall came dashing out of the emergency doors. "Boys, you forgot these!" she said, handing over the half used box of earplugs that had been on her desk.

Gage took them from her in stride and noticed the dozen or so gluke tubes that had been shoved inside with them with a wink. "Are you gonna get in trouble for issuing excess supplies, Dix?"

"Nope. We're in disaster mode. You know Rampart's administrators never count bandaids until after it's all over. They'll just lick their wounds and write everything that isn't a government regulated medical supply off as gone to a good cause."  
McCall grinned. "And saving you three from wasting into food starved twigs enough to blow away, definitely fits that parameter."

"Dixie, you're a miracle worker!" said Marco and he dug in eagerly for a tube to eat.

"How about telling that to the administrators upstairs, Marco?" Dixie smiled. "Maybe I can get a real good pay raise out of it."

"Sure will. Uh, I mean, as soon as I'm no longer tied up." and he pointed to the east.  
"Looks like our calm rescue day's over fellas." A mile wide, thick column of orange lit brush smoke was just beginning to rise over the city margins from the foothills. Its heavy mantel of post destruction smothered the fringes of glowing streetlamps gridded around the rich suburban homes of those neighborhoods.  
Already, sounds of sirens pierced the night noise over the santa ana's.

"Oh, boy. Step on it, Roy. Who's closer? Mac's burgers? Or Amos's chili dogs?  
We gotta scoot before we're toned out to report to the chief." Gage snivelled.

"Amos's." said Marco.  
"Mac's." said Roy.

Dixie broke the tie and said. "Amos's, boys. By half a mile. Go. And stay safe out there."

"We will.." said Roy, putting on his helmet for night travel.

"I just may see you up there, guys. And soon. It's my turn to delegate out nurses to any evac recovery operation that might spring up because of a grade four wildlife fire. And that certainly smells like one." she said, her limpid eyes reflecting the mountain fire's glow.

"We'll save a pot of coffee for ya.." said Gage as Roy stepped on the gas with a squeal for their nearest planned source of food enough for the whole station. Dixie shook her head ruefully when the squad's tires screamed piercingly as it made its right exiting, ninety degree turn under the hospital skyway.

Dixie retreated inside out of the wind to pack her field bags. Already, she could see the head nurse relieving her from swings, on early graves, getting tangled up in another phone call blitz. She just hoped all of them were as uncritical and benign as the ones she and Gage had fielded twenty minutes earlier.

-  
"Ya got em?" pegged Hank Stanley even before the chili dog perfumed squad had shut off its flashing backing lights.

"Plenty.." said Marco, pushing a slow Gage out of the cab. "Enough for four dogs each." he said wiping away chili sauce from his moustache.

"Hey, Cap that's no fair.." moaned Chet. "How come Marco got to eat before the rest of us?"

"He was faster at volunteering to take the squad in for Roy and Johnny, that's why. Next time, leap a little higher if you're hungry and I just may pick you."  
Cap said, snatching a hot dog bag from Lopez's presenting hands. He had a dog halfway inhaled before Roy shut down the squad's power. "He's clean, too.  
Remember that, Kelly. There are open showers at Rampart when it's busy.  
So I don't wanna hear another gripe about taking a squad in. That chore's packed so full of incentives I'm surprised murder isn't done whenever we have two victims to transport at the same time."

The gang didn't even bother moving to the kitchen table for dinner.  
They ate right there on top of the squad's hood, using their jacket gloves for snack trays.

Stoker matter of factly shrugged as he stuffed his face with food while his other hand marked another spot with a red headed pin over the wall map next to them showing where fire stations all around the county were being deployed. "I'm too nice to kill anything but flames, Cap. Let the weak ones eat first."

"Very funny.." said Chet, spilling cheese onto his shoes. "Oh, man.."

"Start slurpin', Chet." grinned Roy. "That's the only four you're gonna get."

Johnny teased, too. "Yeah, you just go ahead and lick those shoes. If you're still hungry afterwards, Dixie gave us all some gluke tubes for dessert."

"Really?" Chet said, whistling to Bonnie to come lap his shoetops clean.  
"I claim dibs on the cherry flavored ones."

"You get what comes.." Marco said, blinding reaching into the earplug box for his share of tubes and Chet's. He thrust his hands behind his back without looking at what flavors he had grabbed out. "Ok, pick an arm."

"The right one." said Kelly holding still, while Bonnie the Yorkie groomed off his shoe polish along with the chili cheese.

"Aw, nuts." finger snapped Marco. "That handful's got two cherry tubes."

"Luck of the draw, sore loser. Heghhh." he laughed in a teasing sneer.

Johnny chortled around his mouthful of meat. "Don't grouse Marco.  
I can always start an IV on ya and spike it red with some koolaid or something to make up for it."

"Nah, that wouldn't work at all." said Lopez watching Bonnie eat. "I don't think my veins have any tastebuds to work with."

"Yeah, but you'd be looking at it. Pysch power goes a long way if you use your imagination." Roy teased.

"I don't like needles enough to be Gage's guinea pig for that little experiment.  
I'll settle for the lemon tubes I got fair and square." sighed Lopez.

"Thanks, Marco. Thanks, Dixie!" Chet toasted to the air with one of them. "Instant room temperature jelly pops. My favorite.."

Hank chided Kelly into silence for acting out his overactive sense of silliness.

Bonnie was just burping contentedly when the tones finally rolled out a brush call standby series.

Cap jogged to his office phone to get their assignment, wiping off his mouth with a jacket sleeve as he went.

The gang followed after him. Chet was somewhat slower because Bonnie was still growling warnings and feeding off his chili splashed toes.

"Station 51, Los Angeles County Fire Department. This is Captain Stanley."  
he greeted. "Oh, hiya Chief.." He nestled the phone onto his shoulder briefly.  
"It's Houts. He's already at the command center." He lifted the phone receiver to his ear once again. "Where to?"

The voice on the other end of the line jarbled a few questions about deployment for Stoker, who got the passed off phone long enough to reply to the chief.  
"Yes, Chief? Uh, I got em all pegged, yessir. There's only a six mile long gap left that hasn't been manned by FD above Bear Claw Canyon." he advised.

##Do you know the territory?## asked Chief Houts.

"Uh, not really. It's been seven or so years since that area burned, sir." replied the engineer loud enough so that the others could hear him.

Gage piped up. "Sir, uh, Chief?" he said, punching on the speaker phone so that he could talk to Houts as well. "I offer my property as a base of operations.  
I've insurance enough to cover and a pond that might make a good helicopter filling point. It's in the middle of a hay field."

Hank slapped Gage's jacket in admonishment at his sneaky way of getting the fire department onto his ranch but he had to hold his tongue or be overheard.

##Hmm. A big pond?##

"Over three acres. I've several barns, too. They'd make great bunkspace for recuping fire jumpers. And....I'm.. right near a repeater tower direct to L.A." Johnny buttered even further.

##Good man. Hank, didya hear Gage's offer? Use his ranch to set up your fire district's base of operations pronto. You'll have stations eight,  
ten, ninety ninety and one twenty four all under your jurisdiction. I'll trust you to get that source of water potable for the choppers just as soon as humanly possible.##

"Yes, sir."

##Now finish eating and get cracking, 51. And for g*d's sake start feeding your station mascot a little better on the busy shifts. I can hear her complaining about the grub way over here.##

Chet Kelly piped up, "Uh, Chief, sir. That's not Bonnie's stomach rumbling,  
that's----"

Hank stepped on Kelly's foot sharply and shut him up. "We're on it, chief.  
Give us twenty minutes to gear up the extra hose and rescue equipment and we'll report in. Gage, give the man your ranch address and box number.  
That way he'll know where to send the others."

Johnny grinned at his success and gave the information.

When the phone hung up, no one was smiling bigger than he was.  
"Let's just see my ranch burn now with five whole fire departments and their vehicles camping out on it."

Mike Stoker just tapped the red colored region of the map ominously on their way out to keep Gage on a level.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Roy in turnout outside Rampart's emergency doors.

Photo: Dixie smirking mildly.

Photo: Gage insistent and sitting from the squad's open door.

Photo: The gang gathered in the vehicle bay.

Photo: Chili dog on a red carhood.

Photo: Johnny and Bonnie the dog, on the phone.

Photo: Chief Houts, grinning.

Photo: A mountain brush fire at night above a Californian city.

*  
From: All the Voyagerliveaction Staff Writers  
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 15:49:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [EmergencyTheaterLive] Wind and Fire.. The Final Price..

Engine 51 and Squad 51 kept up tight formation as they wound into the mountains deep in the heart of rural Los Angeles County.  
Task Force Batallion came over the radio.

##Station 51. Your unit's the last one to roll in to the others on your station's assigned call. Report to the main fire camp located at the airfield 2 miles north of highway 14 on rural route 384. Your unit's designation for the duration is Task Force 2376 Charlie.  
This fire's line has been plane reported as an escalating level four firestorm eighteen miles wide with recent accelerated fire behavior.  
Use caution.##

"10-4, Battalion. Reporting to Main Incident Command. ETA approximately fifteen minutes to that location." Stanley reported over the engine's mic.

Chet in his turnout gear gave a low whistle. "Drought conditions for ten years and whatdidya get? H*llfire in the making and I'm not talking about penny annie stuff. Look.." and he pointed out the window of the Ward.

The squad, roaring ahead of them, actually slowed down as the two paramedics rounded a corner of wild country to see what they would eventually be facing. A black maw of pitch colored smoke was yawning over a tiny team of fireline fighters and their vehicles, which were slowly retreating back down the highway to an open space at the mountains' foothills.

Cap paused along with Roy and rolled down the window. "Can we still get by?" he asked a worker sitting on a hill with some evacuated civilians who were clutching pets and babies, while watching the monster blaze approach their neighborhood town.

"Yeah, man. We saw ya coming. PD and roving FD will escort you in past the hotspots. The road's still open but I'd recommend you get into gear right now. The smoke's down to less than a mile visibility..." said the lieutenant.  
"The reason we pulled out is for an air drop of scba's and more drip torches."

"You heard him boys." said Cap loudly, so his paramedics could hear him through their open windows as well. "Ok. Stay safe fellas..." Hank said cheerily, hunkering down in his coat as he waved Stoker and DeSoto to go on.

"We will. You too, 51." said the man.

Station 51 left the crews behind them and headed into midnight blackness.  
Their first fire escort kept radio silence as transmissions were impossible in between the steep canyon walls surrounding the valley highway.

Inky black and choking gray turned the landscape into that of the moon with ash and darkness. The engine and squad drove forward as fast as safely possible behind their guide's vehicle.

At the next major highway intersection a police car suddenly flashed down to their position from a side road. And a loud speaker boomed out a warning. "51, detour! The fire's leaped your road quarter of a mile up.  
I know a second route the way I came." said the officer.

The gang screeched to a halt and blinked as a Santa Ana lifted the smoke veil long enough to reveal a solid fire line eating the road and the hundred foot high slash pines on either side. The fire there was so hot, the asphalt was already slag and ignited. "Uh, you're right. Lead the way, PD. We're on your tail." said Cap as his eyebrows rose up into his head.

As the engine and squad backed up back to the intersection, Marco spoke up from his seat behind Hank. "That's a huge hot spot. I wonder where air suppor--- Oh, there they are." he said as a fire plane and an Erickson sky crane roared from over the clear air treeline to the highway to douse the leaping edge in mutual attacks of red fire retardant and lake water.

The angry blaze wasn't even slowed one second.

"D*mn.. Santa anas must be feeding that firehead something awful."  
said Chet.

"That's why we're not going up that way.." said Cap.

Soon, Station 51 was following the squad car through the smoke dimmed thick pine forest. The slopes around them grew only steeper and thicker with fire sign. Already tree top fires were starting just through radiation effects alone.

But soon, PD broke away with a waggle and a siren squelch,  
letting the station know that they had reached Fire Camp One.

Stoker coasted the Ward down the airfield to the upwind side to gain full benefit of the clearing winds rushing in to feed the fire on the mountain slopes above them. Roy parked the squad next to him and the whole gang filed out.

It looked like a warzone. Yellow coated national forest firefighters lay whereever they had dropped to nap the sleep of the totally exhausted in any available space they could find. On the backs of filling pumpers, along roadside guardrails and on the bare ground in between fueling trucks. Dixie was already at camp with her army of nurses, still in her white hospital uniform and cap. She was going from man to man, as all the Rampart nurses were, to be sure that each fighter was well watered and not hiding injuries from their commanders just to suit a "being macho" image that so many of them carried like badges.

Dixie waved at Station 51 that she could see across the field and they waved back as they reported in to the incident command tables set near a row of airplane hangers.

Roy announced his squad's status as being free and available paramedics by flinging all the gear doors on the squad wide open with a pair of empty stokes set up vertical against the front bumper. They'd be running on visible cues only from the others in camp until they knew what radio frequencies units were assigned to for medical call monitoring. A minute passed but not one firefighter or support crew flagged them down. DeSoto thought perhaps it would take a while for word to spread that a paramedic unit was on the field.

After getting the word, the gang got one each from their rings of twin ID jacket tags turned into the clipboard crew at the head table.  
They cast their eyes about for familiar faces. Johnny soon located one in an old man, a civilian, sitting with his white german sheperd in a large green wooden lawn chair on top of an old battered pickup truck.

"Graben! What the heck are you doing here? Guys, this is Graben Joergg.  
He's a retired horse trainer who helps me get chores done around the place whenever I'm away at work in the city..."

"Hiya Johnny boy. Hi fellas. Nice to meet you finally so I got faces to put with all the names. This here's Snowflake." he said, stroking the head of a beautiful white dog who lay panting in his lap. The dog's weight didn't seem to bother the old man at all. "He's Johnny's right hand dog whenever he's riding back into the scrubland to check on the wild horses ranging up there." he said, pointing a gnarled sun freckled finger up at the burning mountains ringing them. "And before ya ask. Yes, the ranch is still there. And yes,  
Command's using your pond to get their water buckets filled. Your waterhole's pretty much drained already." and Graben began to chuckle with a throaty rasp.  
"The water level's so low that the copters pass out of sight as they go into the basin for a water pickup. Quite a sight. So far, just the sky cranes are actually using it. "

"I'll fix that with a quick radio report once we get our incident HTs from the forest crews. They're being calibrated to our new call sign and the rest of the four stations with our assigned unit." Gage smiled. "Where's Kehayke?"

"Your aunt's around here somewhere, feeding the boys. She says your wild horse ranch band's taken off for the high country. I was gonna go find them to make sure they skiddaddled but these fireboys around me said no one not a homeowner's allowed up there, because of the fire."

"And they're right." said Cap in a no nonsense tone of voice. "You'd be best staying put." he said, petting the relaxed white dog gently.

"Doesn't the caretaker house we stay in count, Johnny? We don't own it but we live there.." asked Graben.

Gage started making denial noises but then the need for truth got the best of him. "It's possible to return. But only with a fire crew going with you. As your boss, I can order you to stay in camp.."

"Not your aunt, Johnny. You can't order her without the police to back you up. She's family. And I know about family. Cause they're visiting me right now. My boy and my grandson."

The gang drifted away from Gage to give him a little privacy.

"You mean they're still at the ranch?" Johnny said with dismay.

"Yeah, where else are they supposed to go? Besides them four fire stations are surrounding them real nice like. I don't know how ya did it getting em to come but that was smart thinking, boy. They're doing a real fine job clearing space around the buildings. I'm going because she's going and that's that." he protested.

Johnny threw up his hands. "Ok, you're right. I guess I can't convince you two not to go back up there. But promise me you'll listen to the fire crews and stick with them, ok? Tell Kehayke to forget about the mountain horses. H*ll they're mostly wild already after being loose all spring and summer. They've more sense than firefighters do when fire's a factor. They'll get to safety on their own. Promise me that you two will just evacuate the horses in the barn."

"I will, but it'll be harder convincing your aunt to promise that. She worries about those wilder horses of yours more than her own children sometimes. And you know that for a fact. "

A shout from Cap got his attention. "Look Graben, I gotta go. Looks like we're finally getting our situation report. I'll try to swing an excuse to get up there and help ya, ok? Don't do anything stupid."

"Like I would.." laughed Graben. "I'm old enough to be your grandfather."

Johnny had to grin and he put on the helmet he'd been holding as he jogged away to the forested clearing Cap and the others had gathered in.

Snowflake whined as the paramedic moved away. "Hush, Snow. He'll be all right, that one. It's his aunt we need to worry about. " he said rising to his feet. "Come on, let's go find her and deliver Johnny's message, ok?"

The old man and the white dog left for the food trailers.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Captain Stanley was already meeting with a fire jumper fresh out of the surrounding forest. Gage wandered up in time to hear the core of the news.

"....This monster's already straining the firecamp's resources to the breaking point and beyond..." said the sooty firefighter. "Usual and customary procedures are going out the window, captain, not by design, but because way too much is happening in way too many places and way too fast, sir." he said.  
Then he leaned forward to all the gang and whispered. " I really don't think Incident Command is able to grow personnel fast enough to meet requirements on the fire line. I've heard of way too many guys who're being ordered to pull out and retreat, even before they've had a chance to backburn anything."

Johnny grew immediately uneasy and cast worried eyes in the direction of the mountain slope where his ranch lay. "How about Bear Claw Canyon?  
What's happening there?"

"Don't know, medic. I haven't heard. Communications have been as patchy as getting immediate supply and water support. Sorry." the man shrugged. "All I need to know is that the guys from my unit are getting their *ss*s kicked.  
We've three on the injured list already. Do me a favor medic, keep an ear out for Task Force 1117 Beta. That's me. If you get a Code I, come running.  
I want no one dying today.." said the man , getting more and more agitated.

His rising stress and anxiety began to prey on 51's gang.

Hank put an immediate halt on that effect. "Hey mister, take it easy. We'll do everything we can paramedic wise. That'll be one resource that won't fizzle out on you and your crew. Ok? I'm personally overseeing that no one within ten miles of me goes without treatment. Just remember that this whole thing's workable. Eventually you'll get to the backside of the thermal curve, the fires'll die down, the winds'll abate. The trick is to just get through it, event by event.

Just protect yourselves and your equipment, and, when you get the chance, make things better one small piece at a time. This blaze can't burn forever. There's not enough fuel in the world to keep it going once it reaches the lowlands for I know this whole part of the county's been lumbered to death wherever it was flat enough for trucks and crews to reach."

The exhausted dirty firefighter shook Captain Stanley's hands in gratitude.  
"Thanks, again, sir. We'll be watching for you and your partner, medic."  
he said, returning to his crew heading for the rest and recovery station near the roving nurses.

Hank sighed as the newly issued walkie talkies they carried expressed a department wide update. ##....Strong Santa Ana conditions will drive predicted daytime temperatures above 90F leading up to the fire. In addition, humidity is reported down to single-digits, and 40 mi/h westerlies are blowing from the desert toward the coast. Results are mass ignition, rapidly-moving fire, and extreme fire behavior, including large fire whirls. All elements of the fire triangle are present and at high levels, still classified :  
Firestorm. This is Incident Command weather bulletin for 1900 hours and--##

Cap tuned out the rest of the broadcast. Mike Stoker folded his arms and started rubbing his chin.

"Uh, oh. Stoker's pondering again, guys. I don't think I like seeing that." said Chet.

Mike proved him flawless in feel. "Hmm, releve' seventeen... That mountain..." he said pointing in the direction of Johnny's canyon and ranch. "..has got a 90%  
impenetrable, 12-foot-high chaparral cover. Steep canyon walls and approaching Santa Ana wind conditions. Fuel's dense on the ground, with dried out chaparral available in large quantities in the inland valleys and foothills."

"What the heck is chapparal, Stoker? Sounds like an aftershave." said Lopez.

Stoker smiled, then his face fell into a quiet seriousness. "Chaparral is a fire-adapted bush, part of what fire ecologists call "fire climax" ecosystems. Its ground fuel does not naturally rot or otherwise disappear like other vegetation. It doesn't deplete until a wildfire takes place and the shrub's growing cycle can start again from seed."

Roy asked the unspoken question. "What does Bear Claw Canyon consist of?"

"96 % Chaparral on firecrew inaccessible slopes." he said softly.

The gang fell silent, growing scared for Gage.

Johnny mumbled. "So that's why my ranch's red on the map, huh?"

"Yeah, sorry. Chaparral's an indicator species I can't ignore in all my numbers."

"So I bought my new home on the range right smack in the middle of a giant tinderbox. That's just terrific...No wonder it was so cheap."  
Gage said.

"Look on the bright side, Johnny,.." said Chet. "After the fires move through. The grass'll grow back real lush enough for all your rehabilitated mustangs."

"That's if I have a ranch left with which to manage them." growled Johnny.

Kelly moused down and swallowed hard under Johnny's irritated gaze.

The whole station was galvanized when there came a call from Beta 1117 direct.

"Hey, isn't that the fire jumper's unit?" asked Marco as they all ran back to the fire trucks.

"Yep. Looks like the fire's playing more than a little hard for those boys. DeSoto, Gage. This one's a medical. Get on it." Cap said as he listened to his command HT's channel.

"Right, Cap." And soon, there was no more time for worry.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Squad 51 pulled up at a group of outbuildings on the shore of a river. The far side was engulfed in flames and completely hostile to human life.

Roy and Johnny pulled up and got out their gear when they spotted a couple of Type II firefighters huddled on the ground, giving oxygen to another one who was just starting to move.

"What happened here?" asked Roy.

"We had to abandon our spike camp.." said the firefighter at the gasping man's head. "Jerry here was a little slow getting into the water during our escape. We swam across. I think he got a lungful of vacuum when the trees exploded. His tank ran out."

"Crown fires are air hogs. Was he unconscious long?" Gage asked.

"Nah, started breathing right away when we got him out of the river. Our main concern is a check for super heating or not. His chopper's on the way."

Gage nodded and started talking. "Jerry? Can you hear me? Can you breathe ok or do you think you need a little help?" he said,  
setting a hand on the firefighter's chest to feel for any bubbling vibrations through his clothes.

Jerry just moaned incoherently and flung a hand over his face.

The fireman at his head pressed the oxygen mask a little tighter over his nose and mouth.

"He vocalizing, Roy. Seems any heat didn't get that deep."  
Johnny said. "But a little epinephrine will get him pink again faster. I'll call for it."

Gage lifted up the biophone to the fire camp's doctor and got his medication order okayed.

Johnny gave Jerry the shot into the fat of his hip and rubbed it in. Then he fell to monitoring the man's improvement when it came.

DeSoto crouched to pull off the rest of the man's clothes to look for burns when he noticed a silent but very closely hugging fire captain watching their every move. "Captain? He's fine. He's now moving air enough to know he's uncomfortable. That's a good sign. Looks like we don't even need that ambu." Roy smiled. Then he stuck out his hand, taking the young fire captain's dirty one into a handshake.  
"Station 51. I'm DeSoto. That's Gage."

"Mitch Reed with San Bernadino County Station 286. Thanks for coming out so fast. Our engine doesn't have much past resuscitation gear in the way of medical equipment. We're strictly a brush unit."

"He won't be needing much care, Cap." Johnny affirmed as he listened to Jerry's chest and slowly got some words out of the groggy man. "I'm just seeing some light burns and blisters on his neck and shoulders.  
Nothing around the mouth and nose. Looking better and better, Roy."

Beneath his hands, Jerry coughed and his co-firefighter raised his head onto his lap and held his head still. "Hey, bronco man! Rise and shine. Guess who's bailing our butts this time. 51's all the way from Los Angeles County. That's from half way across the state, man.  
Do you believe it?" he crowed.

Jerry actually started smiling. "Cap, do for them, o-kay. We owe em.  
*choke* I'm feeling pretty alive here." and he shivered. "And c-cold.  
Anyone got a blanket?"

Five of Jerry's crewmates peeled off their jackets to cocoon him thickly.

When Jerry was safely evac'd out of the fire zone to a receiving hospital, Captain Mitch Reed sought out Roy and Johnny as they put all their squad equipment away. "Say, fellas, I'm here to make good on a promise I made for Jerry so he'd ship outta here without starting a riot act. Uh,,.. is there anything that I can do for you two? Arrange meals for your crew at a local restaurant? Get you to some showers from a grateful homeowner?"

"Nothing, Cap. Thanks. We just got here this evening and we just ate."

"Come on, fellas. Anything. I know how scarce you paramedics are covering for the 14,000 firefighters working this fire." said Captain Reed.

Gage's mouth flopped open. "Fourteen ..t-thousand?"

"Yep. From as far away as Montana and Washington state. How do you like them apples?" and the yellow helmeted man began to laugh uproariously. "Seems you boys haven't been filled in on all the details yet."

"No, we haven't. Just a forest jumper's general weather report." Roy frowned.

"Sorry for that. I thought you boys knew. Sixteen are dead already. Several of them firemen. So what do you say? Name it and I'll get it for you."

Johnny's eyes thought hard for a moment and then a slow crooked smile lit his face. "What's your pull with the chopper crews in the area?"

Roy smacked his shoulder for asking.

Reed glanced at the both of them in puzzlement. "I'm their message courier now that we've been pulled off the fire lines for being down a man."

"Good. Here's the favor I think you can give and it'll mean a whole lot to us.."

Roy smacked him again.

"I mean me.." Johnny corrected. "I got this ranch, you see, in Bear Claw Canyon.."

Reed grimaced. "Ooo, you mean the one where there's only four fire stations assigned?"

Gage looked askance at him. "Uh,..there's soon gonna be five in less than an hour if I have any say in the matter."

"Oh, I see. You want me to divert a chopper to save your place when the heat's on because my voice is the one in authority? Consider it done,  
51. As one grateful fireman to another. We can't get gifts from those we serve and in your case, treat, so I guess it's up to us to give to each other in my line of thinking. And apparently in yours, too." he laughed.  
"Just give the word. I'm on Tach 5, 101.8. I know that ranch. Choppers have been going there for water the last two hours."

"Sure appreciate it, captain." said Gage, getting into the squad.

"My pleasure.." said Reed, and he waved as he walked away.

Roy had finally come to terms with Johnny's machinations and he only shook his head ruefully. "You're a lot gutsier than I ever thought you could be, junior."

"How's that?" said Johnny, buckling himself in.

"First, you con the chief himself to use your ranch as a base of operations...."

"I had water, remember? That's rare in these parts, Roy. I had to offer an option when I knew about it. "

DeSoto didn't seem to hear him. "Then you stretch those overtaxed resources even further by trying to pull a chopper off his route along the fire line by taking advantage of another guy who is still an acting superior. All captains are."

"Soo." said Gage, grinning. "He offered. I took it. No big deal."

"It is a big deal when other lives might be on the line and needing that chopper."

"No fireman's that stupid to wait that long to get into that kind of trouble, Roy. Doesn't our training as firefighters amount to anything? Even if we totally lose Command frequencies, we should be able to read this fire and deal with it as it comes and besides, Stoker's not the only one good with numbers. I've been doing a little calculating on a few facts myself. Even if all those choppers and tankers flying around out there hit their mark one hundred percent of the time, they would still only hypothetically be able to contain only thirty percent of this fire." he said smugly.  
"It's just grown too big, Roy, for air support alone to contain.  
Ground crews are gonna be the key in this blazing inferno as they are for any other forest fire. So no, I don't feel a bit guilty for grabbing a bird crane off an effort I know will be an act of futility in itself in the end."

Roy stared at Johnny, unblinking for long seconds, in utter amazement,  
until driving needed his full attention when the road back to the Main Fire Camp curved on him. "You never cease to surprise me, Johnny.  
You do think things through."

"Have I ever not done that?" asked Johnny stretching with pure satisfaction in his seat.

"I'm claiming the fifth amendment.." Roy answered honestly.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dixie smiled and came to meet their squad when it got back with two very very welcome bottles of water. "Are you sure you boys don't want some coffee? I got some chilling in a thermos by the ice baths."

"Water's good." said Roy, gratefully draining his.

"So how did it go? I heard your voice over the doctor's radio calling for IM epi." McCall asked.

"Piece of cake. He was practically awake and all the way breathing by the time we got there. Nothing that a good hot meal and a solid night's sleep won't cure." Gage said.

"That and a few bandaids." DeSoto added.

"Huh?" Gage sputtered.

"You're forgetting Jerry's spark branding."

"Oh, yeah. He had a few face, neck and shoulder blisters, Dix.  
It'll be good for dragging sympathy out of his wife or girlfriend."

Roy glared at him. "Or for dragging out a good long fight for her being reminded of his being in such a high risk job."

Johnny frowned. "You and Joanne fight about your job?"

"All the time. But my love for it wins out. Needing money really helps my end of the argument. And her love for me let's me stay doing it for the price of a disagreement or two whenever I get laid up."

"Is it worth it?" Gage asked warily.

"Every second."

Johnny continued to fix a studying cautious stare at Roy.  
"I hate picking fights. I never win at em. Unless they're against a one, fireman Chet Kelly." he grinned.

Dixie chuckled. "Say, Johnny. Do you need help at the ranch? I ran into a Graben Jeorgg about an hour ago. Said he was heading up there with your aunt to fetch his son and grandson."

"Is there a problem we don't know about?" Roy asked reading the guarded expression on Dixie's face.

"Yeah, high command's practically ordered the evacuation of all fire personnel from the mountain except for the four stationed on your property. They're gonna try to hold onto that water supply for as long as they can."

Johnny took off for Engine 51 at a dead run, looking for Cap.

He cajoled, pleaded, argued and begged, until Captain Stanley hunkered over to the Command tables to get orders to report in earlier with their assigned task force currently stationed at the ranch.

Dixie took advantage of Roy's equally rattled state and joined them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Station 51 headed down the highway. Ten minutes later, Roy screeched to a halt when the looming ghost of a burned falling tree suddenly fell onto the road ahead of them.

The gang got out and put on their scba masks in the heavy smoke and stood there helplessly as they considered their options.

But right then, none other than Captain Mitch Reed melted from out of the trees with a team of axemen. "Hang tight. Save your air.  
We'll get you through." And he winked at Johnny. Not spilling the beans at all about their chopper deal. "If you see fresh fire from the top of that ridge to the west, don't worry. We're firing up there to start a backburn on the edge of that slope, hoping to keep the fire from descending into your canyon."

"Good luck." said Hank. "Appreciate the breakout captain."

"No problem." he said and soon he had his men clearing the road.

Station 51 arrived at Johnny's ranch without any further delays.

They met up with the other four fire stations already camped out with laid fire hoses. They were concentrating on clearing the brush and back burning pure scorch around the buildings and horse corral.

Johnny frowned. "Graben's not here yet? The work horses are not out of the barn it seems. The corral's still empty."

"Maybe he thought better of coming." Roy said.

"No, I'm sure he's coming. He promised Snowflake a dish of canned Rival when he got here." Dixie countered.

"Don't know what to tell ya, partner. Let's just see what we can do."  
Roy said finally as he turned off the squad's motor at the edge of the pond for protection.

"Ok," said Johnny nervously. The two paramedics and nurse got out.

Cap went to the other four captains for his situation report. Johnny told Hank that he and Dixie were going to scope out the barn and release the horses to the range.

Hank nodded. "Stay on radio.." he said, lifting his. Then he fell to listening to Station 124 with the latest.

The lieutenant was filling in for his captain who was overseeing yet another water drop a half mile away from the lake through binoculars. The pond had long since been drained away too shallow to utilize with the Erickson air cranes. "..The hill falls away in front of us to the south, where the fire is coming from, rather steeply. We had a ridge road in front of both of our fire lines for a while. But then we discovered that the wind's blowing very lightly out of the west. We've decided that we can wait until that spot fire's closer, when it's clearly going to burn through us before firing the ridge around the houses. Then, in stages, starting to the east, we plan to fire the grassy slope in front of us. That way the two fires will burn towards each other using up all the bush fuel to black before the big line gets here."

"This is your call. I'm just a city slicker.." Stanley grinned.

The other stations were tied up on the ridge above 51 when the fire exploded and advanced high speed towards Johnny's ranch.

Hank couldn't believe it but when he went out and looked, the fire was on the ridge across the canyon from him and had already spotted about half way down the hill. He radioed that their last hope was that the road below would hold it until the backburning preventative work was done.  
Gage had a much better view than the crews east and west of him, so he called and alerted them to the fire's advance. "Roy! I'm going in! Dixie stay close to me.  
Go to each stall, open it and step out of the way. If they don't want to run, slap them over the rump with a stick or something. Make sure it hurts."

"Got it.." said McCall.

The fire increased and then some of the large dead pines next to the barn started going off like explosives. A whole tree collapsed and tumbled into a barn window and ignited the hay loft.

Marco shouted into his radio. "Johnny! Fire in the barn! Get out of there!"  
Lopez wasn't sure that he had been heard or whether or not Gage knew the worst had happened. Lopez quickly informed Cap and soon two engines were relocated next to Engine 51 and hoses were directed onto the new fire inside.

Hank shouted. "Hear from them yet?"

"No! I don't think they can hear me.." answered Marco.

As if in reply, several spooked horses darted out of the barn, narrowly missing the firefighters.

"That'd better be all of them.." grumbled Cap. Then he jogged over to the engine and got on the loud speaker. "Gage! Dixie! Abandon now!  
Hay loft's ablaze!"

In support, Marco and another firefighter positioned their hose streams into the same open barn door from which the horses had fled.

A crash of noise and a bright burst of flame from all the windows made every firefighter dash a little closer to the barn. The loft had fallen.

"Gage! McCall!" Cap continue to shout through the loud speaker.  
"Get out of there now!" His anger was fierce and almost as hot as the fire. Finally, he hooked fingers at Chet and Roy. "Put your masks on and get em out. Over your shoulders screaming and kicking if you have to. I'll deal with Gage later. Just see that I won't."

Chet and Roy were almost entering the sparking barn when the roof above caved in, totally engulfed in flames, and it landed completely blocking their way in.

Captain Stanley shouted. "Axes! West side!"

Kelly and DeSoto ran for them.

--------------------------------------------------------

Johnny Gage was in the stall with the one remaining terrified horse. And Dixie. He clung to her. "Keep your air mask on. There's only one way out for us. How did the fire get here so fast?"

"A *cough* tree." gasped Dixie through her scba mask. "I saw it fall after I chased the last horse out. It took me this long to get back to you. I think the way out's blocked!"

"Take off your tank!"

"What?!"

"We can't ride him weighted down by them. We'll tip off."

"What do you want me to do?" said Dixie, peeling out of the air bottle, but not the mask.

"Breathe deep, then get on behind me. I'll help you up!" Gage said.  
hyperventilating in his own mask. He threw it away and shimmeyed up the stall wall until he was high enough to ease onto the horse's back.

"What makes...... you think this is ......going to work?" Dixie huffed,  
breathing intentionally fast from her air mask.

"He's a cow horse. He'll do anything I tell him to do."

"Even walk through fire?" Dixie trembled as she was helped up.

"Even that. I got sugar in my pocket that he'll get afterwards."

"Sure hope he's got a sweet tooth bigger than the fire."

"Oh, he does all right. Hang on tight! Here we go!" yelled Johnny.

He shared his mask with Dixie one more time before tossing it to the wooden slated floor. He gathered the bay horse's reins and dug in his heels. The stallion jolted forward.

Dixie buried her head in Johnny's shoulder, trying not to look as they galloped toward what appeared to be a solid wall of flames.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roy and Chet hadn't even thunked in a first bite of their fire axes when a indignant squeal of angry horse and terrified male and female voices, in stereo, split the air. Like Ichabod Crane,  
they leaped out of the barn fire and over the burning tree trunk in a single leap and out into the smoky twilight.

"It's the lone ranger!" Chet hooted.

"Not so alone, Chet.." Marco grinned. "He's got a girl riding with him."

"Ok, so it's the paired ranger. Way to cut it close, Gage. Cap's gonna cut into you the moment he sees you. Are you guys burned anywhere?"

Dixie coughed and let herself be lowered by Johnny.

"Nah." he said.

"My hair's singed." said Dixie, feeling herself over good.

"So that's what I'm smelling.." Chet quipped. "Here, let me hose you off." he said, turning his line down to a trickle to put out the sparks in Dixie's hair. "How's your lungs?"

"Fine. We got air right up to the mad dash."

Johnny was already off the brown stallion and checking him over.  
"He's got a cut over the eye. Nothing else that's major." Then he started to grin. "And no burns.. Here you go, boy. I'll get you a whole box full of sugar just as soon as--"

"Gage! Just what kind of stunt do you call that?!" yelled Hank as he barrelled over to where they were clustered.

Johnny made it a point to get on Marco's hose so he'd look properly busy.  
He sent off the horse to the freedom of the open meadow with a choice sharp spray to the rear and ears to cool him down. "Uh,..what stunt? I'm anchoring now, Cap."

Dixie planted herself between Hank's ire and the cringing paramedic.  
"And we got all the horses out. There's no possible way anyone could have predicted that tree falling so hush or I'll make you hush." she glared,  
still dripping from her washdown.

Stanley grumbled into silence. "That much is true." he said at last.  
"Ok, everyone. Pack up. The barn's toast. Go concentrate on protecting the houses now."

Everyone hastened to the task. Soon all five engines were laying water and backburning desperately around the remaining buildings.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Johnny turned to Roy. "Ok. it's time I made my last stand. Wish me luck. I'm going to be on the roof of my house, laying down tarps and water. I'll call the chopper down from there.." he said.

Roy said. "You're nuts. That fire's too big for any of that."

"I gotta try, Roy." and with that Johnny jogged over to Cap,  
to get permission to start cooling down a house roof.

He got it.

The others could just see Johnny reflected in the rising red morning light as he stood with a hose on the roof of his bungalow defiantly. He turned to the others when he felt them watching him and offered an encouraging victory sign that drew tears to their eyes.

-  
Gage was still feeling pleased with himself when a child's shout drew his attention. Then it finally registered on Johnny that he was seeing Snowflake running high speed towards the caretaker cottage into the direction of the sound. "Nathan?!"

Gage could see the boy, one who should have never been there, run after the dog. He gave a shout over his radio.  
"The kid's here! They're all here! Follow him!"

The firemen all did, dragging their charged hoses after them.

Johnny moaned when he saw the boy standing in front of a doorway of fire at the caretaker cottage's front, screaming at him. "They're in there! They're still in there!" shouted the boy.

The firemen were horrified when they looked into the living room window behind the child and saw the curtains ablaze. A pine bough had stabbed through the glass and was starting a fast fire inside.

Roy knelt by the boy. "Who's in there exactly!"

"Auntie and my grandfather! Dad went to find you guys but he went the wrong way towards the pond and the all the squads."  
the boy cried.

"Are you sure you aren't hurt?"

"I'm ok! I'm fine! Please help them.."

Up on the roof, Johnny heard that heart wrenching plea plain as day. Without a thought, he lifted his HT and called for Mitch Reed and a helicopter. Then he gave the only drop order he could.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The four other station captains, busy with the protecting ring, pointed at Hank to lead the rescue operation.

But the fire proved too hot to enter by the front door.  
Then Gage's voice yelled out a warning. "Cover!  
Drop and cover! A bird's gonna load on ya right now!"

Startled, the firefighters looked up to see a huge bulk of a fire retardant helicopter hovering overhead.

They abandoned their hoses and ran out from under the roaring bird's prop shadow.

Then the coast guard helicopter dropped its entire load of red retardant onto the cottage's porch which immediately snuffed out the fire.

"How in the world did one manage to get here so fast?!"  
Hank marvelled.

"Don't question fate.." said another fireman as he ran back to re-man his hose to put out all the minor hot spots still remaining.

Stoker did the same with Cap as his anchor man.

Quickly, Chet, Roy and Marco got into the living room in air bottles and found Kehayke right away lying on the couch, unconscious.

Meanwhile, Johnny had slid down the ladder leaning against his house and had come dashing in after them.

Johnny didn't know whether or not his aunt had been hit by the tree bough but there was no time for checking anything. He hefted her up into his arms with Roy's help and got her outside.

Marco and Kelly went in as a team to search the rest of the house for Graben Joergg.

Johnny lowered his aunt down to the dirt and immediately got on her head. "She's barely breathing. Cap, you got the--"

"Right here, pal." said Hank plunking down a squad's oxygen tank and demand valve near his shoulder. Gage dug into the gasping woman's mouth with a few probing fingers. "It's just her dentures. Must've been knocked down her throat when something hit her or when she fell."

The moment the false bridge was out, Kehayke started breathing hard and soon her eyes fluttered open. "Johnny? ....Oh,..."  
Then she started struggling as memory returned. "Graben!" she shouted.

Roy and Johnny and Cap all held her down. "Easy. We've got people in there looking for him right now. Just take it easy."

Snowflake the dog was frantic. He was running from door to window and back again, barking at the top of his lungs at the fire. But he didn't try to go inside the caretaker's house.

Soon a laden Kelly made it back out the knocked down living room fire with Marco helping him. Graben was slung over his back like a sack of potatoes.

Kehayke sat up and started sobbing when she saw him, pushing away the oxygen mask.

Hank contented himself with putting a nasal cannula for her to wear around her face. "Kelly?"

Chet shook his head grimly but he remained gentle, lowering the very still and badly burned old man to the ground face down. He gestured a few gloved fingers over his face.

::Facial burns. Too extensive for resuscitation..:: Cap thought.  
::He's dead.::

It took Roy and Johnny only a few seconds to realize it, too,  
and stunned, Gage asked Chet to go cover him up with a sheet.

Snowflake immediately started howling and he set his milk white head down onto his master's stomach and mourned.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was an hour later.

The collective attack plan of theirs had worked. The main fire had bypassed the area and had spared a full firestorm effect over Johnny's ranch. But the teams did spot a fire whirl or two over the now crusted over pond.

Kehayke was awake and ambulatory with normal vitals signs.  
Healthy enough, that the paramedics had to respect her refusal to seek further medical attention.

"I'll keep an eye on her. She's still reeling from losing Graben."  
said Dixie, holding the reins of the brown cowhorse that had gotten Johnny and herself out of the barn so fast. Kehayke simply wept against the tired horse's face.

Johnny reluctantly left them. Carefully, he avoided the tiny clearing in the trees where his dream house was located and he took a short detour through them, hoping to find a place to relieve himself in private.

He met up with a very sad man in a burnt out clearing. Johnny recognized him as Graben's son, the little boy's father.  
"I tried to tell him." the grieving man said. "I told him it was too dangerous to come back up here. But my father said that horses were important enough to go back for."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Jeorgg. It's a horrible thing to have happen to anyone. I just wish that there was more that I could have done."  
Johnny said, scuffing a foot in the black ash at his feet.

"You let your house burn for Graben. I saw you redirect that helicopter so that it would dump on the cottage instead. That was very noble of you. My father was probably already dead by the time my son found all of you."

"There's no knowing.." Gage said, without looking away from his eyes. Not saying anything else, he gripped Darrin's shoulder in a heart felt move of sympathy and finally hugged him. "Graben was a wonderful person. That horse he trained saved my life today and got us out of a burning barn. I can think of no greater gift than that as his final one. Your father was big on giving."

Darrin smiled as best he could and left Johnny to his thoughts.

It was a long time before Gage could summon up enough courage to watch his house burn to the ground.

-  
Snowflake had done his duty and had located the mustangs Johnny had been worried about all day. They were safe and grazing quietly by the lake, totally unphased by the fire helicopters zooming in for their measure of water to combat the main fire,  
which was now moving away from Bear Claw Canyon.

Dixie was playing with Nathan and Kehayke around the brown stallion. Roy was there too, putting silvadene on the few burns the horse had received from flying embers, while the barn burned down.

The rest of the gang was watching him, while they rested with water bottles and food. They were waiting for relief crews to arrived to continue the hot spot and digging details in the surrounding woods.

Johnny couldn't resist baiting them all. "Hey guys, and especially Dixie. Guess what this old boy's name is.." he said patting the snoring horse standing quietly next to him.

"What is it?" asked Mike Stoker.

"It's Windy.."

FIN

Episode Twenty One- Devil Winds

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